Fernie, BC: A City Cursed, A City Cured

A hundred or so years ago, a prospector named William Fernie duped an Indian into revealing a tribal secret, bringing down a curse that would last almost a century. Fernie, legend says, happened across an Indian maiden in Canada's majestic British Columbian mountains. His eye fell upon a string of shiny black stones on the maiden's neck. Recognizing the stones as coal, Fernie quickly realized his future would be secure if only he could learn the secret source of the mineral.

Here the tale takes two paths. One version tells of the wily prospector wooing the maiden to loosen her lips. The other version tells of the prospector's promise to marry the chief's daughter in exchange for the information about the source of the coal. Whatever the original ante, Fernie's true intentions soon came to light. He no sooner discovered the source of the valuable mineral than he jilted his would-be lover. Angered by Fernie's desertion, an irate parent (some say the maiden's mother; others, the Indian chief) cursed the valley. Forevermore, said the curse, the valley would be haunted by fire, flood and famine. And for nearly a century fire, flood and famine did plague the valley. Then in 1964, Chief Red Eagle stepped in. Red Eagle and his Kootenai tribe lifted the curse through a ceremonious smoking of the peace pipe with Mayor James White. But until that far-off day, misery would be the valley's unwanted guest.


Removing the Dead from the Mine

In terms of human lives, the worst disaster struck the village one quiet spring evening about the turn of the century. In what will forever be remembered as one of Canada's worst mining disasters, an explosion ripped through #2 and #3 mines, instantly extinguishing the lives of 128 men.

Special precautions had been taken. Safety lamps could only be opened by magnet. Body searches regularly turned up matches in pockets, shoes and even hair. But the real danger was layer upon layer of undampened coal dust, intensely vulnerable to the flame of blasts. In a mine where coal dust hung like thick drapes, choking men and conversation, where it carpeted the floor two feet deep, and where that it was substituted for clay to pack drill holes, disaster seemed inevitable. Apparently, it was.

On the evening of May 22, 1902 coal dust and flame shot 1000 metres above the fan, alerting external workers to serious trouble within the mine. They would later learn that a blast had ignited some of the ever present coal dust. Not many of the 200 men on shift would escape the skull shattering blast, the lung searing blaze or the poisonous afterdamp.


Arrival of a Trainload of Dead

Following the explosion, the Church of England's hall had to be converted to a temporary morgue. Coffins and graves became rare commodities. Men labored night and day to prepare the earth and to build more caskets for the waiting dead. More than thirty funerals would bury the victims, many in unmarked graves because they were burned beyond recognition.


Loading Dead onto a Train

As can be expected, most were deeply moved by news of the disaster. Support poured in from across Canada with generous donations of food, clothing, money and offers of help. Sympathetic messages jammed the wires and the post. But one heartless man was unsympathetic and he would pay for his callousness. The local paper reported that a force of 500 angry men ran Constable Barnes out of the mourning community after he callously remarked of the dead, "it is too bad . . . that there were not a couple of hundred more."

Two years later, a fire broke out in C. Richard's general store. The blaze leapt to nearby wooden buildings, decimating most of the town's business district in only four hours. But the community would not admit defeat; it was rebuilt "almost before the embers cooled," according to local press.

In 1908, the town would again be engulfed in flames as a forest fire left 6,000 homeless. With the only possible escape by train, the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern railway hauled load after load of human cargo over heat-twisted rails through searing heat and suffocating smoke, depositing many in the relative safety of Elk River. Survivors waited out the inferno in the chilly water--scalp-singing cinders raining upon them throughout the long night.


Combination Funerals

Fire. Flood. Famine. All as the curse had predicted. Another eerie reminder of the curse remains - the ghost rider of Mount Hosmer. This 'ghost' "can be seen each sunny, summer evening on a rock-face high above the city. The 'ghost' is a spectacular shadow in the form of an Indian Princess sitting on a horse with her father, the Chief, walking beside her, leading the horse." (www.folkore.bc.ca) Within months, the phoenix Fernie arose from its ashes. By 1910, the town boasted banks, hotels, churches and almost a dozen weekly newspapers--most wisely built of fire resistant brick. Fire and explosion were not the only sources of tragedy. Too often, Elk River and Coal Creek would rise from their beds to usurp land, and to flood nearby homes, ruining crops and gardens.

Despite the apparent potency of the curse, Fernie himself seems to have escaped its reach. The prospector retired a wealthy man--with a personal worth of almost $300,000--an enormous sum in that day--and he lived to the ripe old age of eighty.


Lacking Enough Carriages and Horses Meant Most Were Hand Borne for Burial

Images courtesy of BC Archives

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